


The Icing on the Cake

by GrayJay, teaberryblue



Category: Avengers: Earth's Mightiest Heroes
Genre: Baking, Birthday, Competent Tony, Fluff, M/M, gazebo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-01-02
Packaged: 2019-02-24 09:59:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,421
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13211388
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayJay/pseuds/GrayJay, https://archiveofourown.org/users/teaberryblue/pseuds/teaberryblue
Summary: Tony Stark decorates a cake.





	The Icing on the Cake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cap Iron Man Community](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Cap+Iron+Man+Community).



> Written for the 2017 Cap-Ironman Holiday Exchange Community Prompt: competent Tony. that’s it. just Tony being really competent at something.

The sweet smells of vanilla and caramelized sugar wafted from the kitchen into the halls. 

“Are you baking?” Tony asked. 

Steve was sitting, perched on a stool that was much too small for him, with a piping tube in his hand and a consternated look on his face. 

“Frosting,” Steve said, glowering at the layer cake gradually collapsing on the table below. “Trying to frost, that is.” 

Tony meandered over, frowning thoughtfully at the cake. He tapped his wrench against the table. “Isn’t it _your_ birthday?” he asked.

Steve nodded. “That’s why I’m making a cake.”

“You’re not supposed to make your _own_ cake, Steve,” Tony said. “Didn’t you guys have birthdays in the Forties?” 

“No,” Steve said. “No birthdays. Birthdays were invented in 1956.” 

Tony sighed. “You’re supposed to get any one of a number of friends to make your cake, or at very least _order_ your cake.” He whipped out his phone. “Here, let me--” 

Steve reached for Tony’s wrist to still his hand. “It’s already _baked_ ,” he pointed out. “I just need to frost it.” 

He indicated the cake, again, and the rather blobby layer of icing that currently topped it. 

“Your problem,” said Tony, swiping a finger through the mess and sticking it in his mouth, “Is that you forgot to do a crumb layer.”

“A crumb layer,” Steve repeated.

“Mm,” said Tony around the frosting. “This is delicious.”

Steve caught Tony’s hand as he made a second pass at the cake. “You’re going to make it worse!”

Tony quirked an eyebrow. “First of all, while I am eternally impressed by your boundless optimism, I’m not sure _worse_ is technically possible at this point. Second, this is what happens when you try to make your own birthday cake. Bad Karma.”

“That’s not what Karma means,” Steve pointed out.

Tony ignored him. “Soooo, why don’t you go put up whatever charmingly bucolic decor you were planning--I’m guessing streamers--and let your brilliant Uncle Tony work his birthday magic.”

“I’m not sure I want your birthday magic on my cake,” Steve said. “And I’m _really_ not sure the others do.”

“My birthday magic is universally adored,” Tony told him. “Now, shoo.”

Grudgingly, Steve removed himself from the stool, and handed over the icing bag. “Are you _sure_ you know what you’re doing?” he asked.

Tony waved him away, and hunched himself over the cake, holding a hand parallel to its top layer as if he were checking the level. “Psh. This is precision craftmanship at its finest.” 

“If my cake ends up talking--” Steve started. 

Tony frowned. “You don’t want a talking cake?” He looked down at the cake. “Now that you mention it, I hate anthropomorphized food. Always makes me feel guilty.” 

“No talking,” Steve repeated. “No wheels, and no explosives. Actually, no moving parts. Just cake. Normal, edible, not-science cake.” 

“No can do, Captain Curmudgeon,” Tony said. “All cooking is either chemistry, engineering, or both.”

“Minimum science,” Steve amended. “Bare minimum.” 

Tony looked at the cake. Then he looked at Steve. Then he looked back at the cake, and his face broke out into a grin. “Bare minimum,” he echoed, and put his hand over his heart. “Promise.” 

 

The streamers were more complicated than Steve had expected--the slick walls of Tony’s living quarters provided frustratingly few anchor points, and proved surprisingly tape resistant--

“STEVE!” Tony’s muffled shout came from the kitchen. “Steve, I need the laser cutter!” 

“You promised no science!” Steve yelled back.

“This isn’t science!” Tony shouted. “It’s _art_! Really,” he said, as his head popped in through the door. “You should trust me more. I’m following all of your instructions to a _T_. C’mon, help me carry the laser cutter up.” 

Sighing, Steve left the streamers dangling sadly, and went to help lug the laser cutter from Tony’s lab. 

“Do I dare ask what this is for?” Steve asked, mid-carry. As usual, ‘helping’ Tony had somehow resolved to Steve carrying the laser cutter and Tony holding the doors open. It wasn’t _heavy_ , exactly, not for Steve, but he was still skeptical. 

“Fondant,” Tony replied cheerfully. 

“Oh, of course,” Steve answered, finally letting the laser cutter drop on the kitchen island. The cake was nowhere to be seen, but several bowls of colorful buttercream were sitting out on various counters in a disorganized fashion that _very_ much reminded Steve of Tony’s lab. “I feel like I ought to remind you before you try to run sheets of marshmallow through the laser cutter of the incident involving--”

Tony gave him a baleful look. “Really, Steve,” he said. “Marshmallow? You think that little of me?” He clasped at his chest. “I’m crushed. Heartbroken.”

When Steve failed to exhibit appropriate concern, Tony turned back to the counter. “Anyway, the laser cutter is for templates.”

“At what point do I get to see this cake?” Steve asked, eyes narrowing.

“It’s a surprise,” Tony said. “Anyway, don’t you have cups to write everyone’s names on?” He made a shooing motion toward the door. 

 

Steve was halfway through setting out plates when Tony yelled again. “STEVE! GARLIC PRESS!”

“Are you putting--you’re not putting _garlic_ in it, are you?”

Tony’s head emerged from the kitchen. “Don’t be ridiculous. Garlic press. In my workshop. Second shelf to the left.”

“The garlic press is in your _workshop_?”

“ _Today_ , Steve-o.”

Steve found the garlic press on the third shelf to the right, wedged between two large wrenches and what looked like a crochet hook embedded in a tangle of wire.

“What do you need a garlic press for, anyway?” he called on his way back up.

Tony peered out of the kitchen, holding the door open only just wide enough to receive said garlic press. He waggled his eyebrows. “ _Landscaping_ ,” he answered, in a saccharine tone. 

“Landsc--” Steve’s imagination was filled with images of cakes he’d seen at expensive bakeries aimed at children’s birthday parties: farms, racetracks, dinosaur terrains. “Do you need a gazebo?” 

Tony snorted. “Of course not. You requested an _entirely_ edible cake. Whoever heard of an edible gazebo?”

Steve blinked.

“Although,” Tony said, thoughtfully, chewing on his lip, “I suppose if you wanted a gazebo, there’s enough time to sculpt a chocolate--”

“No,” Steve said, patiently. “I’m sure it will be fine without a gazebo.” 

“It’s your cake,” Tony said, in a tone that implied that he heavily disapproved of Steve’s decision and possibly of his ownership of the cake. 

“Or with a gazebo,” Steve hurried to add. “Either way, really. I’m sure it would be a delicious gazebo.”

“If you insist,” Tony said brightly. The kitchen door slammed shut again.

 

“So,” Jan said, “When do we get to see this famous cake?” 

“You heard about the cake?” Steve frowned. 

“Who hasn’t heard about the cake?” asked Clint. 

“Well, _me_ ,” said Steve.

“But Steve,” Tony said, sounding distressed, as he slung an arm around Steve’s shoulders, a glass of punch swirling in his other hand like a fine scotch, “you baked it! And art directed it! And found the garlic press--”

“This isn’t a garlic cake, is it?” asked Clint.

“Are you all _vampires_?” Tony retorted. “Why is everyone so down on the idea of garlic cake? 

“We have _taste buds_ ,” Clint pointed out.

“Anyway, now I _really_ want to see it,” Jan said. “I mean, if Steve art directed--”

“I did nothing of the sort,” Steve replied. He frowned. “I did bake it. And find the garlic press. That part’s true.” 

“Oh, you did so much more than that,” Tony insisted. “Really, Steve was the inspiration for the whole thing. Ooh, and the gazebo. That was entirely him. Well, his idea; I did the actual construction.”

Steve pressed a hand to his forehead. “ _Gazebo_ ,” he muttered. 

There was no question that it was an impressive cake.

“You certainly put...a lot of yourself into it,” Jan observed, patting Tony’s arm approvingly. 

“Hopefully not literally,” Clint muttered.

Tony’s likeness grinned up at them from the top of the cake. He was stark-- no pun intended-- naked, with “Happy Birthday, Steve!” painted across his bare chest. 

“Pubic hair,” Steve said, dully. “You wanted the garlic press for pubic hair.”

“ _Fondant_ pubic hair,” Tony corrected him. “And you did request the _bare_ minimum, and you’ll notice that I was mature enough not to take umbrage at the ‘minimum’ part, uncalled-for and inaccurate as it may have been.”

“I’m assuming that it’s, er--anatomically correct?” Steve asked, raising an eyebrow and blushing furiously.

Tony grinned. “Something had to hold the gazebo up.”


End file.
